Marmon Sixteen History

The Marmon Sixteen was Howard Marmon's masterpiece and the company's final automobile. He had begun developing a V16 around 1927 with the goal of building the world's most advanced engine, but Cadillac and Peerless — both using ex-Marmon engineers (Owen Nacker at Cadillac, James Bohannon at Peerless) — beat him to market with their own V16s, blunting the Sixteen's first-mover advantage.

The production Sixteen, sold from 1931, used a 491-cubic-inch (8.0-liter) overhead-valve V16 built largely of aluminum with steel cylinder liners, set at a 45-degree bank angle and rated at 200 horsepower — an exceptional figure for the era. Its bodywork was styled by the industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague (with his son), and cars were coachbuilt to each owner's order.

The Sixteen arrived in the depths of the Great Depression, the worst possible moment to sell an ultra-expensive luxury car; only about 390 were built. Marmon ended passenger-car production in 1933, and the firm reorganized as Marmon-Herrington to build all-wheel-drive conversions and trucks. The Sixteen is now a prized Full Classic among collectors.